


Bend it Like Batfam

by Jonaira



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Airbender!Dick Grayson, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily-centric (DCU), Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick Grayson is Robin, Earthbender! Jason, Gen, Homelessness, Hurt Jason Todd, Jason Todd Feels, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd is Robin, Loss of Powers, Post-Under the Red Hood, Pre-Under the Red Hood, Resurrected Jason Todd, Street Rat Jason Todd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25492456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonaira/pseuds/Jonaira
Summary: The Batboys are benders of the four elements. Pretty straightforward, really
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne
Comments: 13
Kudos: 110





	1. Dick

**Author's Note:**

> So I've fallen headfirst into the Avatar: the Last Airbender fandom and am choosing to drown all my feelings about it by frantically heaping batfam upon the pile.  
> Lord help me

**Dick** : Is utterly and totally an Airbender. 

Just look at him; he makes even the  _ wind _ self-conscious with how he moves through space. There's such joy in his fluidity and grace, and it makes even the roughest of people smile to see little Dickie bird fly. 

The crowds love him, and young as Richard is, he's the face of the Flying Graysons.

Mary watches the way he flutters from perch to perch, her little bender born on the first day of spring with eyes the colour of the sky and of course,  _ of course _ he's Robin. 

All the bending in the world isn't enough to save his parents when their line snaps.

Dick's feet don't leave the ground for months after. Because what's the point of being able to fly if he couldn't save those he most loved, when he was needed most ?

He doesn't think he could bend even if he tried to. It's like the ability left the high-top alongside the spirits of his parents, and he's never felt more bereft.

Bruce is non-bender. It doesn't stop him from taking Dick in and teaching him everything he needs to know about how to fly even without his air bending. Bruce is a little awkward, and unsure of himself, but there's nothing awkward or unsure about the way he loves Dick. It's enough for the time being.

And then one night as they stand before the flickering flame of a candle, Bruce is Batman, and Dick becomes Robin again.

It's been long enough that Dick is no longer actively counting the months since he's become Robin when a hail of bullets comes so very close to tearing through Batman, Dick seeing the way the metal will rip through the kevlar of the suit leaving his partner a pulpy, bloody shell. He screams because he's too far away, he'll be too slow and his hand comes up in reflex. The next thing he knows is Bruce is bleeding from exactly two grazes on his shoulder and arm, the rest of the bullets embedded in the wall a good seven feet off their trajectory, and Batman smiles.

Robin soars the sky once again, fluttering from roof to Gargoyle and swinging around flagpoles as his cape catches his wind and he glides over the summits of Gotham.

When he becomes Nightwing, his wagtail jumps through the air morphs into the powerful glide of a hunter, one that swoops through the night and makes criminals wish they'd taken that dental insurance afterall.

He meets others like him - Koriand'r is not an air bender since she's an alien, but she's a kindred spirit all the same and takes to the clouds with him as they lock arms and dive.

There are the Titans, there are the fights with Bruce, and there are tears that are shed silently in his slipstream before they can fall. But even a hurricane blows over to a gentle breeze at some point, so there is also soul searching, and reconciliations and suddenly there's Jason too. 

And then he's gone, like dust in the wind.

Only for Tim to come along, soothing like cool water over a burn. 

Barbara loses her legs, and gains mastery over an element entirely of her own making - he christens it  _ Bytebending _ when she works her Oracle magic, and she laughs when she swats at him from her chair. 

There comes along Cas, and Stephanie and Jason miraculously enough (even if it's rocky at first).

Damian comes in hot, hissing like embers, and wind blowing through a forest fire is a deadly combination, but they still somehow make it work as Batman and Robin when Bruce is gone. 

Except, Bruce comes back and Dick feels like he can breathe his own air for the first time when he dons his blue arrow and flys over the roofs of Blüdhaven once more.

Sometimes, when he needs a little quiet, Dick will rest upon a cloud and let the condensation from it roll over his suit, catching the rosy light of the setting sun like diamonds chasing the last of their sparkle. He'll wonder, what would a little peace and calm would look like for a change. It's easy to forget about the chaos down there while he's up here where the air is thin and you can hear the silence.

He'll remember then something Clark once told him when he first pulled on Nightwing's blue arrow -  _ The air is never still. _

So Dick dives back down, hitting terminal velocity even faster than his heart's going before his aeolian instincts catch him. The familiar pressure change blocks his ears and all he hears is silence in the midst of the thrumming city. 

Dick Grayson never did plan on learning the meaning of doldrums anyway.

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Jason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was probably a metaphor to be found here, Jason supposed wryly. He was about as difficult to get rid of as the dirt that got under your fingernails.

Jason first realizes he's a bender when he's lying face down in a puddle of muck in some back alley, feeling his scalp tighten and the hair stand on end over the lump that's quickly rising over the back of his head. 

It's his souvenir from trying to keep his food for the night from getting snatched. 

Too bad the bump is only egg _sized_ , and not an actual egg which he could eat. Jason thinks he might be a little delirious. Pain, hunger, and _annoyance_ are taking turns gnawing at his belly. Which is now also cold, and vile smelling from the questionable puddle in which he'd landed.

Jason rolls himself outside the water over onto the dry but equally hygienically questionable concrete of the alley. 

He's been on the streets for a little over a fortnight now after hightailing it out of his last foster home. It's not his first rodeo but it's been the toughest one so far, what with autumn's chill making the nights outside on whichever park bench he passes out on _uncomfortable_ to say the least. Washing up in the restrooms of gas stations and anywhere else where security doesn't immediately turn away an unaccompanied 10 year old has still left him filthy enough that his nose has shut down from the smell emanating off him. 

It's a pity, because now that he even looks filthy, his faithful ole' trick of asking for a dollar to call his mum to pick him up doesn't work either. Not that it worked all that great before, Jason had never quite managed to pull off _innocent_ all that well, and Gothamites were a naturally suspicious bunch.

 _Eau de Todd,_ he thinks and giggles to himself. Yup, definitely delirious. Now he smelled just like his old man, minus the cloyingly sweet ketonic underscent of stale alcohol. 

He doesn't have it in him to even push himself into sitting up. His last full meal was a couple of days back, and if he's gonna starve to death anyway, it doesn't make a difference whether he kicks it on the humble floor of an alley or the soft carpet of a highrise in the Diamond District. Not that he knows whether the carpets really are that soft there. The closest he's ever gotten to being inside one of those skyscrapers is _thinking_ about it, given that he's spent his whole life in the East End. 

It hadn't been an easy life, but there had been moments of happiness. And now he's heading into a dangerous headspace. Jason shies away from thinking about Catherine Todd, all the times when she'd be passed out and unresponsive on the couch and the times when she'd laugh and sing songs to him, cuddling her baby as they watched crappy late night TV. 

Jason finds he isn't all that upset about dying. 

He just wishes he could have been a bit _cleaner_ when he kicked it. Seriously, a little dignity wouldn't be amiss.

It's bothering him more than he'd expect it to, considering his straits were what counted as dire. 

Jason squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the sight of the dull undersides of the fire escapes, the smoggy rectangle of sky that churned between the two close-set buildings in whose shadow he lay.

Jason wished with all his heart that he could be clean. He thinks about pushing each and every speck of filth off his person, the muck leaching off his skin and leaving him distinguishable from any other piece of Gotham's trash.

Something's tickling him and Jason thinks _Great_ , he's now gonna get bitten by a Gotham alley rat and it'll be a toss up if he's to die of either rabies or the black plague.

Except, the tickling is full body, under his layers of clothes and doesn't feel like ants either.

He squints down the length of his body, and then jack-knifes upright. Jason rubbed at his eyes with the back of his now _clean_ knuckles.

It looked like he was lying in one of those chalk outlines they drew at crime scenes for a body. Except the 'chalk' is actually a thin line of dust and unevenly spread around him.

Jason swallowed, his throat clicking with how dry it was. Benders were rare. Not completely unheard of, but rare enough that most people could go their entire life without ever meeting one. His mother used to tell him stories on her good days, a wistful look on her face as if she wanted to believe just as much as he did in all the crazy stories about the benders.

"Remember Jayjay," she'd stroke his hair, "benders present at birth. They grow up learning it and using their skills just like you or I learnt to walk and run and jump. But, they say that some benders only discover their abilities when they're older. Nobody knows why that happens but it's so, so very rare."

"Even rarer than a bender being born at all ?" He'd asked, curling up closer to her.

She'd hugged him, pressing a kiss to his hair. "Yeah baby, even rarer. And they're always, _always_ some of the greatest benders out there."

Now, years later Jason took a shuddering breath. "Move," he tells the line of dirt. It stays right there.

But Jason is nothing if not stubborn.

"I said," he grit his teeth, " _move,_ " and he brought his fist down on the ground. A crescent of dust broke the line and flew five feet away, scattering on impact.

There's a new kind of hunger waking in him now, pushing him to his feet. He's got his dinner to track down.

* * *

He learns that earthbending is all about listening and waiting for the right moment to strike.

The earth is slow to move, but unstoppable once it does. It needs a firm hand to raise it, and decisiveness to send it heaving towards where he directs it. Jason has spent his whole life digging in his heels though, so bracing himself when he bends rock ten times heavier than him comes naturally to Jason. He ends up spending a lot of time around abandoned construction sites, playing king of the mountain on the heaps of gravel which he sets swirling around him.

He sends a shower of stones clattering against the rusty lengths of rebar that lie around. Practices pulling the scattered gravel back under his feet, and happens to get a complimentary facefull of dust. Coughing and spluttering, Jason spits out the metallic tang of iron from his mouth. 

And then thinks, _Rust._

Oxidised iron. All the dirt on Mars was practically made of that stuff !

And it made sense, didn't it ? Metal was just purified ore, and ore was earth too. 

(He'd been spending his days in the public library where the nice redhead had helped him make a card and would give him books on science to read. She never pryed or asked him uncomfortable questions about how he happened to be spending time at the library during school hours, but Jason was pretty sure that if he checked a school reading list, he'd find a lot of the books she recommended to him on there)

He made the gravel carry him over to the rusted rods, and placed his hand over a particularly ruined patch. And then Jason _shoved_. 

A chunk of jagged metal ripped out of the bar with a groan and shot off into the evening, the now bisected beam shuddering and rolling off the pile. Jason has to jump back to avoid getting his toes crushed, but at the last moment, the dual bars slow down as he pushes again.

 _So_. Metal bending, huh.

Jason punches the air in glee, and then ducks as one of the rods goes flying overhead.

* * *

He's gotten closer to the car (it was honestly more of a tank) than he'd like, preferring to unscrew the wheels from a safe twenty or so feet away, then making the wheels run towards him.

But the Batmobile's wheels didn't quite screw on like that of a normal car, and he'd needed to get closer to figure out how they'd need to be unscrewed. 

Sure, Jason could just bend off the whole thing, but that would definitely snap the axel and an intact wheel with all the parts attached from the freaking _Batmobile_ would sell for a lot more.

He's pretty sure he could drive the whole armoured car away by just bending the inner mechanisms. But he can't damn well sit on the roof and just drive the vehicular embodiment of a midlife crisis to Curly's shed without setting one very angry furry on his tail. It's not like he can actually sell the entire fucking thing either unless he first stripped it for parts. He doesn't have the time for that, the Bat could be back any minute now so just the wheels would have to do.

(It's totally not because the car is a beautiful _beast_ of a machine and Jason doesn't want to destroy her that way)

He's got three wheels out and is just about beginning work on the fourth when someone clears their throat behind him.

Jason jumps violently, and the pillars of rock which he'd pushed up to prop the car instead of a jack wobble in response to him startling. The car rocked dangerously, the concrete supports falling away completely before sending its three sides crashing down to land on their rims. Jason is already sprinting, the wheels rolling after him.

Something entangles his legs and he goes down hard, only bending the tiles of the sidewalk below him at the last moment to soften and break his fall. He's already got his knife out and is sawing at the length of rope Batman had shot at him, but the big guy is already looming over Jason, arms crossed.

Jason decides that since he's pretty much screwed, mouthing off is the gentleman's way to go.

He's about to tell Batman that it's his lucky day, 'cause Jason was giving a great discount on a trio of slightly used Bat-tyres and would Batman be interested in doing business maybe ?, but Batman beats him to the punch.

"You're an earthbender." It's delivered in a growl, completely inflectionless.

"You asking or telling ?" He shoots back.

"How did you get the tyres off without a tyre iron ?" Batman demands, and Jason sighs. He's done a pretty good job over the last couple of years keeping his earthbending quiet, and his metal bending ever quieter. He's not about to change that status quo just because some dude who's possibly dealing with his midlife crisis by dressing up as a bat and driving around in a sports car on steroids asked him nicely. That sort of news getting out would only put a bounty on his head from the who's who of literally anyone he'd never want to meet in Gotham.

Could Batman keep a secret ? He wasn't taking the risk needed to find out.

"Do you believe in magic, Bats ?" He gives the guy his best shit eating grin.

Jason had been working on cutting the rope all this time, but its done nothing but dull the edge of his blade. Figures that the Bat wouldn't use plain old rope. This had to be some sort of metal filament weave. Which meant…

Jason was fast, but he had no doubt that he'd be caught and bound again the moment he could bend the metal in the ropes enough to loosen it and get his feet out. It would give away his secret to Batman too.

Except Bats is inspecting the tyres, head tilted ever so slightly.

"You can bend metal." He deduces, and Jason's jaw drops open.

* * *

He tries not to get too attached, because something that's too good to be true is also something that doesn't last. He suspects Alfred may have an inkling of what's going on in his head, but the old butler only serves him triple helpings of everything and distracts him with stories about the manor and it's grounds when Jason gets antsy at how damn _idyllic_ life at the manor is.

Jason hadn't always been a glass-half-empty kind of guy (In his experience, most of the time he didn't even _own_ the glass, much less philosophize about it). He keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. But Alfred merely fills him with more culinary masterpieces, and even if Bruce is possibly a furry in the midst of a midlife crisis, he's still pretty damn cool.

It takes time, but the other shoe never does drop, and eventually Jason stops waiting for it to.

That Bruce Wayne is Batman becomes secondary news only to the fact that the position for Robin is open.

He takes it.

* * *

Jason loved sitting in a corner of the empty ballroom of the manor, back against the wall and bare feet curling on the cool, smooth marble below him. The manor was ancient, its massive ballroom one of the oldest parts and it tells Jason stories that even Alfred doesn't know, of all the feet that have polished its surface and all their reasons for celebration. 

When he closes his eyes and extends his senses outward, he can feel the way the earth is riddled though with tunnels and caves, teeming with life of its own. The Batcave always stands out like a beacon, a reference point he uses when he explores the tunnels with his eyes closed, sitting in his corner.

Bruce is a non-bender, but that only means he works all that much harder at helping Jason hone his own bending. Like Bruce had drilled Dick in the fluid, spinning movements of Baguazhang before Jason, now together they worked on the strong, rooting stances of Hung Gar instead. And slowly but steadily, as his bending grows stronger so does Jason. 

(The other night, he'd knocked a potential rapist out cold with what he was pretty sure was just a light kick. To the groin.)

Before Bruce, Jason could make the earth listen to him. But after Bruce begins training him, _he_ can listen to the earth in return, and it's got a lot to say.

But not as much as Jason does. Because not only was Dick Grayson the first Robin, he's also the first bender Jason's ever met. He wasn't around much, and Dick spent more time arguing with Bruce when he was. But on the few occasions that Jason had caught him in a non-combative mood, he hadn't been able to stop asking Dick questions about what was it like to be born this way, knowing one's exact place in the world. What it felt like to truly be in one's own element growing up. 

Also, the guy could take a joke and only sends a current of air to ruffle Jason's hair when he asks if Dick's favourite movie was Pochahontas. "Y'know, cause she paaaints with aaall the colours of the wiiiinnndd," Jason croons offkey.

(When Jason breaks out the fart-bending quips though, Dick just blows him off his feet to the mats. He's a tad relieved honestly. Jason was starting to suspect the guy was an actual saint.)

* * *

"You're unbelievable,"Jason goggles at Barbara. "Did you know about me back when you were trying to sneak-homeschool me?" He asks her.

Barbara, decked out in the black gauntlets and yellow cape and apparently freaking _Batgirl_ to boot, chuckles. "You're overdue on the last book you signed out. Pride and Prejudice, was it ?"

His foot begins to tap. The tiles under her feet jump in time.

"About your bending ? No. About your giant nerd crush on any book that you could stick your nose in ? Obviously, I'm a detective."

Jason grins. "Guess I never thanked you for all the great recommendations."

Her smile is soft when she replies, "There's more ways to help people than just the cape."

* * *

That Robin was an Airbender had been common knowledge, known to villain and civilian alike. 

There was no way Jason would be able to pass for his predecessor, no way he'd ever be able to match the almost weightless way Dick covered distances, but he tried his best all the same. 

Sometimes it wasn't enough, but often enough it was.

And if he wills the earth to swell beneath his feet and give him that extra boost he needed for a lift, that's not cheating. 

He may never be as fast as Dick was, but that didn't mean that he couldn't make those he was fighting against _slower_. Fights on open ground or stone are over almost before they start, the dirt sucking at the feet of his opponents. He's not quite sure about swinging over the rooftops with only a slim cable keeping him from going splat, but in time, Jason comes to love grappling around the city, just as comfortable in the air as he is with his feet on solid, responsive ground.

* * *

Turns out, dying is a good way to get your bending broken- it's kinda ironic how now when he needed it the most, Jason had to claw open his coffin, and dig his way out of his own grave without his bending to lift the pile of dirt over him. 

Or, Jason _would_ have found it ironic if he actually remembered anything from _before_.

There are the streets and alleys, and those are familiar somehow. Jason survives on autopilot, but something's missing. He digs his toes into the dirt, searching for something _more_. It's just that though- lifeless dirt. 

* * *

The Lazarus pit restores his life, and his mind in a manner of speaking, but not his bending.

Jason almost wishes Talia hadn't found him and made him take a swim in its waters, because remembering his bending and realising it's gone is like dying all over again. Embittered, he supposed the one part of him that was most important, that was actually worth something, had remained back in that grave six feet under. 

Jason swallows the past the tightening in his throat when he tries desperately to raise even a pebble, which remains resolutely on the ground and tries not to think _What the earth gives, the earth takes._

From dust unto dust.

But he still remembers what earthbending is about - listening (even if he can't hear the ground tell him stories anymore). 

Understanding the lay of the land. (Even if he's drifting on it, travelling and learning and killing with no rest)

And waiting for the right moment to strike. 

He may no longer be able to move literal mountains, but Jason _can_ do patience. 

When he comes back as the Red Hood, he waits for the perfect moment to get to the Replacement, to the Joker. To get to Bruce.

* * *

When he'd tossed Bruce the gun with its single bullet loaded, he'd been dead _(hah)_ sure about leaving his fate in Bruce's hands. 

Despite the rage and hurt that had become second nature to Jason in those few months since he'd been back in Gotham, there had been a part of him that was detached, just wanting somebody else, wanting _Bruce_ to have to make the fucking choice for once. 

And even if Jason _did_ want that choice to be him over the Joker, there was a larger part of him that didn't even want to hope for that particular outcome, fearing that if he'd wrongly predicted Bruce's reaction, then in the split second before he died again Jason wasn't sure if he could deal with the disappointment of being picked last once more. 

That part of him was okay with being shot in the head; at least he'd have been expecting it. It wasn't even like he could bend the bullet away anymore if Bruce did choose the Joker over him.

* * *

He'll never be quite sure how the batarang misses his carotid. Batman didn't miss. But then, Bruce hadn't been aiming for his throat either, had he ? Jason's neck getting sliced open was from the batarang's ricochet off the pipe. 

He only knows that in the moment in which Batman picks neither of the options Jason had prepared for, he had wanted to _live_ more than anything.

He doesn't know how he survives the second explosion of his life set off by the Joker, with tons of metal and concrete raining down on him. 

He should have been crushed. Drowned. Bled out. 

Instead nothing hits him. He finds a piece of rebar curling around him, holding him carefully above the water level. The white gypsum dust from the concrete covered him like a shroud, but rich in calcium as it was, it clots the blood and he's no longer dying from the gash in his neck. 

There was probably a metaphor to be found here, Jason supposed wryly. He was about as difficult to get rid of as the dirt that got under your fingernails.

And Jason dares to hope for the first time since breaking the surface of the pits' waters and finding the earth silent.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you're wondering, Alfred is the Avatar.  
> He's also a non-bender and I will listen to no further reasoning on this (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞


End file.
